Personal Narrative: Indentured Servant Life In Jamestown

Tobacco was the basis of economic life and a motivation for settling down in Jamestown. This helped result in an increase of settlers. The English expansion sparked war in 1622 led by Opechancanough. This war resulted in a tragic death of about a third of the nation. Particularly, the English inhabitants seized Indian’s land and food, cornering the Indian citizens towards limiting possibilities; needless to say they ended up dispersing.

“We must defend ourselves against all Indians in general, for they are all enemies” Bacon proclaimed to a crowd of poor, working class Virginians. In the summer of 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a group of men through Native American territory in protest of the unfair land policies in Virginia. Tobacco was a major crop in Virginia, and because it was tough on soil there was not much fertile land in the colony. Consequently, the shortage of fertile land made it hard for planters to profit from tobacco, and forced the citizens into poverty. As Virginians continued to struggle in poverty, Bacon commenced his anti- Native American campaign.

These colonies came across numerous hardships with war, famine, and political turmoil, in the 1600’s. These colonies worked for commercial purposes and neglected the need for relationship building with natives, safety, and resource gathering, so much so that they lost many early settlers. Working as an indentured servant was brutal in these colonies. Growing, storing, and packaging tobacco was very labor intensive work. Though indentured servants maintained contracts providing them with food, housing, and clothing, often times terms of service were lengthened.

Those in Massachusetts were puritans and looking for a place where they would be free from religious persecution. Wealthy people who could afford the boat journey and did not have to become indentured slaves went for a more settled life. In 1616 John Rolfe imported tobacco seeds to Virginia, as the plants needed long and hot humid seasons. The first people who were granted the right of possessing land authorized the people to cultivate worn out land and grow better crops, as tobacco depletes minerals and nutrients from the ground.

Most of history is seen through the eyes of those of privilege, education, and wealth: royalty, nobility, and merchants. There were those of less fortune or lower class that were educated enough to be able to record their experiences and points-of-view, but they were far and few between. Especially in early America, from immigrants, slaves, free blacks, natives, and indentured servants. “In Defense of the Indians” by Bartolome de La Casa, “An Indentured Servant’s Letter Home” by Richard Frethorne, “Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves”, “The Irish in America” by John Francis Maguire, and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” by Frederick Douglass are by or about the natives, slaves, indentured servants, and immigrants in the early

The quote says that “Fish are present in local streams, but only in the spring and early summer are they there in impressive abundance” (Jamestown’s Environment,” Center for Archeological Research, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 2000). This supports the argument because it shows there are only a lot of fish in the streams during spring and summer, and those fish would probably be festered soon because of their carelessness. So the fall and winter months would probably be a very hungry time for the settlers. In “Ivor Noel Hume, The Virginia Adventure, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994”, it says: “The ship and her lifesaving cargo returned to Jamestown… No one doubted that this new supply of grain would help, but it would not be enough to last the winter.

Cannibalism was not off the plate in jamestown! The southern colonies were unsuccessful, because of tobacco, servants, starving, swamp area, house of burgesses, and Nate Bacon.

They tried other means of trade, such as silkworm farming, and glassblowing, but it was far too cold for either. Jamestown’s saving grace came in the form of tobacco production found by John Rolfe. These tobacco plantations would be the center of the community in Jamestown.

In the early 1600’s, indentured servants, usually someone from a poor class in England would sell their labor for a term of four to seven years for the opportunity to travel across the Atlantic and be funded by a master/farmer. After reviewing “A Contract for Indentured Service (1635)” the blank contract I referenced indicates a term of four to seven years to be completed. The contract promises to pay the servant in meat, drinks, apparel and lodging during his time as an indentured servant. After the term is completed the master is required to provide his former servant: clothing, three barrels of corn, and fifty acres of land. The risks that potential indentured servants had to consider when migrating to the American colonies were the bad

I believe a black indentured servant has a much worse life than a white indentured servant in Colonial Virginia. This all started because Colonial Virginia became an economic powerhouse with only one export, tobacco. The tobacco plant is highly addictive and used throughout the world. King James I talked about about tobacco’s addictive properties and the terrible black soot that it left in the lungs. The Catholic Church proclaiming its everyday use to be sinful. King James I then realized he could tax tobacco products and the people realized there was no mention of tobacco in the bible. This caused the tobacco craze to boom in Europe with no stop in sight. The Virginia colonies sold 200,000 pounds of tobacco in 1624. By 1638 they would sell

Looking back to the 1500s, the English had been situating settlements in Ireland and used a familiar model in the New World. The early years of Jamestown were difficult for the settlers. The land was hot, humid, and mosquito-infested, and the settlers were mostly aristocrats and artisans that spent much of their time searching for gold. Those who didn’t die on the trip, died once they arrived from diseases and starvation. In 1607, about 3 ships-each holding more than 100 English passengers, arrived on the Chesapeake Bay region of Virginia.

The process of black slavery taking route in colonial Virginia was slow. Black slavery mostly became dominant in the 1680s. Slaves became the main labor system on plantations. The amount of white indentured servants declined so the demand for black slaves became necessary in the mid-1660s. The number of white indentured servants that Virginia had up until the mid 1660s, was enough to meet white peoples labor needs. Slavery was also increasing because you never had to pay the slaves that you owned and the plantations required a lot of labor, so slaves were a lot cheaper than the indentured servants. The profits from tobacco and rice led planters to import enslaved Africans, which made the economy depend on slavery. Although slavery was a morally

Slavery first came to the colonies in 1619. When the first Africa slave arrived in Jamestown. Jamestown found success in mass producing tobacco. In order to increase production, slaves were imported in to met the demand. Slavery was not very popular in the beginning because of the cost. Slaves cost twice as much as indentured servants, they had little economic benefits. Chesapeake planters owned more indentured servant, then slaves. In the late 1600’s the slave population grow slowly. That chanced in 1670 when more and more slaves were imported in to North America. By 1700 the African population in Chesapeake stood at 22%. During 1700’s the European demand for tobacco increased. When tobacco became higher in demand it cause the demand for

In 1607, the first wave of colonial settlers arrived in Virginia and began to establish Jamestown. Many of the new settlers came from wealthy families never performing a day of manual labor. With agricultural farming, being the revenue source of the new colonial settlers there would soon be a great demand for labor. Contracts of indentures were expiring and with much devastation in England, there was a shortage of English servants. Since the number of Africans far outweighed English servants, the English dominant sought to take advantage of this and in 1662 passed an act that racialized slavery by defining it as a status inherited “according to the condition of the mother.” In January 1639/40, Act X passed stating, “All persons except negroes to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined at pleasure of the Governor and Council” giving us one of many documented acts of how racial freedom was affected. In this essay, I

During the time of the 1650’s the Americas were not a part of what is now the United States and other countries in Central America and as well as the Caribbean. During those years European countries who were dominate in exploring the world and conquering new lands were the British, Spanish, French and the Dutch. The world economy was greatly impacted by the production of goods the Americas could provide Europe and even parts of Asia. The America’s were rich in materials that could not be made vastly, like the production of cotton, crops, tobacco and as well as natural gems like gold and silver that would increase wealth of the country who was exploring the region at the time. The British crown at the time was a powerful nation and if not the most powerful in wealth and military with great number of troops and